It often makes a lot of home improvement sense to remodel your home in the Charleston area, especially with property values rising dramatically. Ilderton Contractors can help you plan and execute your remodeling or historical renovation project.

One of the best ways to spend your remodeling dollars is to renovate your old home into your dream house. You'll avoid paying what may be an inflated price for a new home, and you won't have to give up your old neighborhood -- the friends, the schools and the great commute.

Homeowners often consider remodeling their current home with two goals in mind - make the home more accommodating for the next few years and add value that will be recouped when they do sell down the road. Bathroom and kitchen remodeling projects are often cited as providing the best resale value return. Big paybacks come from remedying deficiencies that will cause many buyers to skip your house – for example, adding a deck to a home in a neighborhood where decks are common, or building a second full bathroom.

So if you want to remodel your home, what is a common sense approach to the project? According to Doug Smith, our General Manager, you should consider the following steps to a successful remodel project.

1. Figure out your remodeling budget.

There is nothing so frustrating to a homeowner as working on a project and then finding out that what you want to do is beyond your means. If you choose to use available funds, decide how much you want to spend. If you plan to borrow on the equity in your home, talk to your banker to see what funds are available and figure out how much you can afford to pay in monthly payments.

2. Decide what you want to do.

Think about the home improvements you want to make and get as specific as you can about major items – what rooms do you want to remodel, do you want to add on by changing the “footprint”, how about adding a floor by building on top of your current home?

3. Talk to Ilderton Contractors

Once you have a good idea of what you want to do and how much you can spend, we will provide a free consultation to help you:

o define the scope of the remodeling project,

o advise you on “stumbling blocks” in your plan,

o provide alternative remodeling approaches,

o give you a preliminary estimate of the remodel cost.

This will help you to confirm or adjust your original thinking about your remodeling project – have you overshot your budget, can you afford to do more, how can we adjust the plan to get a better fit to your budget?

We will also help you to determine whether or not you will need to involve an architect or an engineer in the project. Generally, a design professional will be needed if your home improvement project involves changing the “footprint” of your home or if you intend to add a level to your home. Ilderton Contractors can connect you with the right architect or engineer for your project.

4. Let’s Get Started!

Once the remodel scope is finalized, its time to get started. At this point, you start to make selections of all the components of the project, from cabinets to wall coverings to flooring, and we will help you establish the budgets for each of those. We have relationships with the vendors that you can work with to meet your budgetary requirements.